


To Start Over...Somehow

by evergreenstringbean



Series: Hurting Richie Tozier's Feelings [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst, Grief, M/M, Other, Richie's jumping around the stages of grief, Richie-centric, Streddie, TW alcoholism, kinda happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 19:47:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evergreenstringbean/pseuds/evergreenstringbean
Summary: Most of the things he’ll think about are simple. What his plans are for the days ahead, new ideas for material that he’s now, finally, writing on his own…and how the world is one cruel, fucked up place.orRichie is learning to cope alone.





	To Start Over...Somehow

Richie thinks a lot more than he ever used to now.

The time he used to spend scrolling mindlessly on social media or hanging out at some random bar is now taken up by impulsive sessions of sitting on his windowsill and staring blankly out of the clear glass. It’s a new part of his daily life. Wake up, clear the bottles off his nightstand, eat, and think. If he’s not at his windowsill, he’s in the shower, or driving to whatever venue he’s headlining next. He drives a lot more than he used to as well. Gives him more time to think.

Most of the things he’ll think about are simple. What his plans are for the days ahead, new ideas for material that he’s now, finally, writing on his own…and how the world is one cruel, fucked up place.

He’s decided that losing the love of your life is the hardest thing a person can possibly go through in life, and he’s taking into account killing evil sewer clowns, psychopathic bullies, and growing up gay in a small town where one person’s deepest secret can be the town’s next big scoop. He thinks about Stan, about how he cried when he’d been mauled by the woman in the painting and he and Eddie had just held him and apologized for making him go into Neibolt, and worse, leaving him alone. That thought burns more than the alcohol he bitterly pours into his coffee right after.

Losing the love of your life is painful, but twice is unfathomable. It’s a kind of pain that makes Richie feel like he’s falling, but in the wrong direction, and he can see the ground below but can’t tell exactly when he’ll hit it. Maybe once he finally lets himself understand everything. He still can’t really accept it. He thinks that at any second, Eddie and Stanley will walk through that front door and apologize for scaring the ever living shit out of him, and everything can just be fucking okay.

*******

Four months later, or four weeks, he’s honestly not quite sure how time is passing without Eddie there to consistently remind him what time it is, he’s just finished a show and taken to the stage door for autographs, when a reporter begins to ask questions. Of course he answers with jokes and the occasional serious answer when need be.

_How’s your dating life right now? Are you seeing someone?_

A few passing moments, and the burning in his chest indicates to him that he’s stopped breathing, and hasn’t answered the question. “What, are you offering?” And that’s that.

Richie gets drunk in his bathtub that night. He cries again. He’s still falling.

Sometimes when he’s walking around his house, he thinks he can hear them. Stanley’s laugh whenever Richie found that one joke that was just right and catered to Stan’s beautiful sense of humor. The little noises Eddie would make when he was frustrated and bickering about something with Richie that didn’t matter in the slightest. And when he passes a corner fast enough, he swears he sees them in the doorway leading to the living room, looking at him with adoring smiles.

When he sees the other losers again, he tries to pretend that he doesn’t notice the fact that the party of five is sitting at a table for seven.

His bill comes out in triple digits after all the alcohol he has to not notice.

*******

When he can’t sleep, like on nights like this one, he knows it isn’t gonna be pretty. He takes seat on the couch, photo albums stacked on the coffee table next to a plethora of liquor and tissues. He carefully examines each photo, laughing as he recalls ones from awful school dances, field trips, summer vacations that he still had a hard time remembering even with the pictures.

He turns a page, and takes a drink. Familiar eyes knock the wind out of him, and he takes a drink. Gorgeous smiles remind him of why he’s sat alone on his couch at three in the morning instead of maneuvering through tangled limbs and whispering sweet dreams, and he forgoes the glass to chug from the bottle.

A hazy mind, tear-stained eyes, and rapid breathing. He’s hit the ground. And Eddie and Stanley aren’t there to catch him.

*******

He’d swore to himself that the last time he came back to Derry would be the day hell was formally renamed Antarctica Part Two, but lately swears and promises haven’t meant shit to him and that’s why he’s driving past the sign welcoming him back to the shitshow.

Once he’s parked, he doesn’t move. He barely even shows an effort to breathe. His legs feel like lead and when he finally gets out of his car he has to force himself to keep walking.

The last time he was in Derry, when he swore he wasn’t fucking coming back, it was the hardest it had ever been to leave. Because just a few hours prior the losers had made their own private graves for both Eddie and Stanley near the clubhouse, and Richie felt like he wasn’t real.

So, as he walked through the woods and ignored the leaves crunching under his feet, he reminds himself of what he came here to do. He just hoped this wasn’t the dumbest decision he could make.

He reaches them soon enough, after all it’s hard to forget when something is when your heart’s tied to it, or some bullshit excuse that Richie makes up in his head as he looks down at the slabs of concrete sticking up out of the ground. He didn’t bring flowers. Stanley’s jewish and flowers fuck with Eddie’s allergies, so he decided to skip that. He hoped being there would be enough.

“…Hi.” It’s the first time he’s heard his voice in a few days, and it’s scratchy and painful. Almost as painful as the pressure behind his eyes, already set to cry. “…Look, I told myself that this was so stupid and that coming here was only gonna make things worse so don’t fucking judge me for crying, alright?” He takes a breath and reaches into his pocket, pulling the photo out and resting it in front of the stones. It’s blurry, possibly because of Ben’s horrendous camerawork, but the image is impossible to miss. Richie, Eddie, and Stanley, all standing outside of college campus, arms around shoulders and priceless smiles on their faces. It’s a photo Richie can’t bear to look at anymore, and the first step in his plan.

“I love you so much- both of you, you know that right? And I know you love me. And I know you’ve both probably been chilling on a cloud in heaven watching me and getting pissed at my poor life decisions. I’ve been pissed at my decisions too…which is why I’m gonna fix it. I’m stopped drinking…well, for the most part, I’m still gonna party like it’s the nineties and I’m ready to fuck shit up.” Richie laughed at his joke that he’s sure earned an eyeroll from them both, and sniffled. “But…I’m gonna- I’m gonna try to move on, okay? I’ve heard that’s what people do when they lose people they love. Move on. It’s just, so fucking hard!” And he’s crying. Sobbing. He’s fallen to his knees, the leaves mostly breaking his fall and preventing any injury. Not like he’d care right now.

“There’s not a single moment I don’t think about you two! I love you so fucking much and knowing you’re gone and I’m here is agony! I’m in hell every goddamn second I can’t be with you! Why can’t you just come back?! I think about what kind of fucked up God would take you both away from me so soon and that I’ll have to just carry on as though both halves of my heart aren’t broken!” His glasses are blurred from the tears, and he takes them off and keeps crying. A day hasn’t gone by in months where he hasn’t cried, but this is the worst yet.

After a long time, Richie finally regains some of his composure and dries his glasses. The tears have stopped, but the ache in his chest hasn’t. “I hope you two are happy, wherever you are. Just…” He moves closer to the stones, and his broken voice is barely a whisper. “Wait for me. Please.”

And with that. He stands up, utters one last “I love you”, and makes his way of out of the woods.

Driving home doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

*******

He starts to smile again in the coming weeks. He doesn’t get drunk in the bathtub or cry when he finds Eddie’s old clothes in the attic. He takes them to Goodwill with Stanley’s books on bird watching, and the guilt he would’ve felt is replaced with ease.

There’s still bad days, when the memories are too close to the front of his mind and his dreams are filled with beautiful eyes and soft kisses. But when he wakes up from those dreams, he now smiles sadly and rolls to the other side of the bed, the side of the boys he lost, but won’t forget.

And he still thinks. He still sits on his windowsill and drinks his alcohol-free coffee and thinks of another universe where there’s one boy reading a book in the chair next to him and another lazily watching tv from the couch. He’s happy for that Richie. He hopes he holds on tight to what he has and doesn’t let go.

Richie stands from the windowsill, turns to the boys standing in the doorway, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Scream at me on twitter @allin_ev_itable


End file.
